The table features
characteristics associated with the famous Townsend-Goddard
school.
Table with
No Takers Two Years Ago Reaps $181,000 at Geneva, N.Y.
Auction
GENEVA, NY - On December 13 at Hessney's Auction Company offered
a possibly rare Eighteenth Century Townsend-Goddard card table,
originally made in Newport, R.I.
Although the table had been pictured in an auction flyer, on the
company's Web site, and advertised in area newspapers, few who
previewed the auction recognized its form. The table came from a
local estate in Romulus, N.Y., where it had been stored for the
past 50 years in a basement. Two years ago the owner had offered
the table to local dealers for $500, and found no takers. The
week before the auction, a collector from Boston previewed
Hessney's sale and noticed the table. So too did several other
collectors, dealers, and auctioneers from the area. By Wednesday
evening, the stage was set for a bidding war that exceeded nearly
everyone's expectations.
Local dealers and collectors were stunned to see the gavel fall
at $165,000, a record price for Hessney's Auction Company on a
single item. With the ten percent buyer's premium the total came
to $181,500.
Bidders in the auction house speculated that this card table,
also known as a gaming table, was a product of the
Townsend-Goddard school of cabinetmaking in Newport. The design
of this table was favored by the Townsend-Goddard makers and may
be an example of their work. The mahogany gateleg table has front
legs that end in ball and claw feet and rear legs that end in pad
feet, a characteristic seen on other Newport Chippendale
furniture of the 1760s-1780s. The top unfolds and the two back
legs swing out to support it. The table's knees on the front legs
show fine shallow carving. Very few of these tables survive, and
most of them are in museums.
"We had a great auction," Joseph D. Hessney said. "There were
over 650 lots that featured antique German and French bisque
dolls, a Federal tilt-top table, a large collection of vintage
toys and banks, clocks, over fifty Hummels, and estate jewelry,
but the table was the star of the show."
